Mentor
by royslady51
Summary: Complete AU from the HP timeline Mid Ninth Doctor The Doctor gives Harry a chance to be a boy. PLEASE REVIEW AFTER READING.
1. Beginnings

MENTORS

Proluge.

The energy bursts came out of nowhere and seemed to be out of _both _place and time in late 20th Century Earth. Someone rather small tackled him from behind, knocking the Doctor flat on his face, yelling, "Get DOWN, stupid! You're fortunate the guy trying to kill you is so _lousy _with his aim." A young lad told him irritably, firing back with what he had thought was a stick...of _wood_. Apparently not. "Just because Voldiesnort finally bought it for the seventh and hopefully last time, since I got rid of all the horcruxes this time, doesn't mean the worst and more desperate of his supporters have also been beaten. Most of those assholes like to torture people to death, so I'm getting you out of here before they get any closer." The boy took hold of the prone Doctor's collar. "THINK of somewhere you'd rather be right now...hard."

He couldn't help but think of the console room of his TARDIS and suddenly he felt like someone NIPPED INTO AND OUT OF HIS MIND JUST TO GET THAT IMAGE and had then _liquified _him and poured him through a funnel...onto the TARDIS' console room floor. The boy let go of him and took a step back. "I"ve got to go finish what the Death Eaters started. Try to stay out of wizard fights, okay? I know you're just a...muggle, but magical wars are _no _place for the powerless. No place for anyone, really, but I've got no choice. Too many will die if _I _don't fight." He was told, and the boy turned on his heel and vanished with a slight pop. "I'll come check on you later to make sure one of those Death Eaters did't graze you with something _nasty_." Hung in the air after the lad had disappeared.

Stunned the Doctor stared at the place where the boy had been and leaned heavily against the console...placed in safety by a boy who'd returned to the battlezone the lad had removed _him _from. Nine was in shock. He looked up at the ceiling, "Did I _imagine _that there was a boy here?"

_Not at all. He appeared towing you by the scruff and deposited you on my floor, lectured you and then teleported himself out by an act of will and mental disapline. It was very humorous._

"Who makes a child that age fight a _war? _What kind of an utter _ass _places a child at the forefront of adult fighters and tells him to fight or all the deaths will be his fault?"

_"Who was he?"_

"Someone I'm going back for...with you, this time. He did his part, from the sound of it, so there's no need that he should be made to do more. Hell, you didn't see me making _our _children help me fight _Daleks _did you? Why should he have to fight murderous wizards at his age?" The Doctor was very, very precise for once in how he set the destination and the TARDIS rematerialized in front of the boy's position. He opened the door just as the last of the enemy wizards dropped to the ground, twitching. There were plenty of adult fighters rounding them up, so he returned the favor of snatching the boy by the collar and closing the door.

He let go as he flipped the lever that would have the TARDIS take them into the vortex as he watched the child spin in place, wand out, drop to the floor, crabbing rapidly sideways to get out of anyone's wand's targeting path, identify where he was, with whom and relax all in the space of perhaps three seconds. "Giant portkey?"

"_No_. This is my timeship...she travels in Space and Time." He was already flipping levers and pushing buttons. "Please don't leave, she _was _on the planet's surface before, but now we're dematerializing and going into the Vortex...it wouldn't be safe to leave that way." He turned to look at the boy. "_I've _fought a war, son. Any adult who forces a child, just one from the look of it, to do so is an ass the size of the Milky Way. If you have no objections, I'd like it if you'd live with me...I _think _I can remember how to go on with a youngster. Been a good while since I've had my own, over 900 years old, me."

"You're offering me a home?"

"Yes, actually." He thought it odd that the boy ignored his statement of age and focused on the home part. "How long?"

"For as long as you want one...so?"

"On a spaceship that has time-travel capabilites?"

"Other way round, actually."

The boy's expression was an odd combination of hope and disbelief. "I've not been allowed a home, not a proper one, since I was 15 months old. Not since my parents were murdered by the madman that started both wars. Nobody really wanted to be _that _much of a target."

"I don't mind, used to it, me." The Doctor proceeded to explain what he _did_...while nudging the boy toward the corridor and the kitchen. He made tea and set out few food bars. "Sorry, I'm told that I don't very cook well and there's no left overs from supper, so if Rose and Jack are asleep...which they are, I pretty much live on these until they wake up. Rose mostly does any cooking. Good at it, her. I'll burn _anything, _me." He told the lad. "What's your name anyway?"

"_Harry_, Harry Potter."

"Well, Harry. Eat the food bar, drink your tea and then we'll see if the old girl's got a bedroom made up for you."

Harry had learned years before to eat whatever was put in front of him, no matter how foul. He never knew if that would be the only food offered that week or not. Since his new guardian was eating the same kind of meal, he consumed it without comment. It was a bit bland, but he had been deliberately starved for too many years, for too long at time to be picky. It was filling and had, the man told him, all the essential nutrients needed and perhaps _more _than all he'd need, since it was developed for the man's species and not his own.

That led to a discussion the various nutritional needs of different _kinds _of people. The Doctor was known by many people to be fairly sneaky when he wanted information...so he played dumb to Harry when poking about trying to find out whether it was the boy'd diet that had so stunted his growth. He hid his growing rage at the adults around the boy, tucking away little bits of background that the child either didn't know he was giving away or didn't think anyone would care about. He suspected it was the second. He had the boy eat two more meal bars, even though most humans could not have used the nutrients in so many, this one could. This boy needed all the nutrients he could manage to swallow. He also murmured something about 'vaccinations' and proceeded to nail Harry with a wide range of just that...along with other things intended to improve the boy's overall health.

"How old are you, Harry?" He asked the lad, though he looked to be about ten or so.

"Thirteen." Came the answer that had the Doctor choking back tears that the lad had been so malnourished as to lose so much development. He mentally made a note to the TARDIS to try to keep most of his interventions out of the really violent stuff for a month or so. It might not be possible since he went where he was needed, but he wished to allow the boy some peace, if at all possible, first. The boy could handle himself in a fight, true, but at least he wasn't to be the focus or the lead.

_I will keep it in mind, my pilot. I have his room ready...poor child. Though he has skills you lack and which will be useful. He can transform one living thing into another harmless one...or into something inanimate, useful for Angels or Autons or such._

He called to Harry to follow him and took him past two other doors to a third one, opening it and waving the lad inside. "Your room." He heard Rose's door open and a moment later the other one, Jack poking his head out curiously. "What's going on, Boss?"

"I've adopted a child, Jack, Rose. I'll explain later, but for now I'm showing him the room that the TARDIS made for him."

He glanced at Harkness. "Child friendly behavior only, Jack." He reminded, got a nod and went back to watching the uncertain lad go over the very odd things in the room. "Some ass decided to make him go through, at his age, what _I_ did. It was horrendous enough for me, but for a child to be at the forefront of a war as the _focus_?" He took in Jack's expression and nodded. "So, child friendly things, only. He's been forced into adulthood at far too young an age...and apparently was conditioned well before that to agree to anything if his freedom and a home were the reward."

"That's sick." Jack told him, joining the Time Lord at the door of the boy's room. "He claims he's thirteen...and his timeline agrees. If you didn't have me here saying so, how old would you guess him to be?"

"Nine, ten on the outside...on his best day and if he's lucky."

"That was my first guess too." The Time Lord agreed in disgust. "He'll be safe from abuse with us, anyway."

"Too true. Yes, I'll be mindful that we've someone on board that's a bit fragile...and talk over his head."

"That'll do. I get the impression the only thing he was ever allowed to learn...and that right forcibly...was how to fight and kill. Mentally, he's older than he should be...rescued me when I heard the noise of a battle he was in, went to investigate and found myself in the middle of something I couldn't really understand. Magic, although rare, is real as you and I both know and I'm no wizard. Harry is, though."

"Hopefully he mostly avoided that last, but I doubt it. But yes, I know it's real. We'll be seeking a Hisram as a teacher for the boy, then?"

"Yes, I think so." The Doctor nodded. "He needs a formal Tutor in his Art, an elder sister, an elder brother...I've signed on as his father, if he'll have me. Trust is something he's had precious little of, I think. We'll have to work on that, we three. I fed him, a bit. Ran some tests, vaccinated him with the full range of vaccines...the same ones the Time Agency gave you and which I gave Rose, gave him some other medications to help improve his overall health."

"You fed him a bit...food bars?" Jack wrinkled his nose. "Harry, are you still hungry...and tell me the truth, please." He insisted, gaining a bit of a nod and noting the boy nodded but looked both scared and guilty enough that he refused to look up at the Doctor...who squatted to put himself on eye-level with the boy.

"If you're still hungry, then you still _need _to eat, Harry. Saying so won't upset me. NOT saying so might, though...but not with you. Jack will take you back to the kitchen and get you something else. I think Rose headed down that way after she got up, too. Both she and Jack are decent cooks, as I am not."

"I can cook, too." Harry ventured.

"Well, once Rose or Jack confirms that, you can have the run of the kitchen too...but not until they say so. I told them I could cook too...and _they _beg to differ." He told the lad with a smile.

"That we do...only being I've ever met that could literally burn water...the stuff was black and inky looking when he was done with it."

"You're kidding?"

"Nope."

"That's...scary."

"Yeah, it is. It's perfectly okay for you take cooking tools, utensils and any food that _needs _cooking before you eat it away from the Doctor if it's raw and _he's _holding it. Ignore the whining." He told Harry as they re-entered the kitchen.

"I do not whine!"

"Yes, you do." Rose told him. "I found several ration bar wrappers in the trash...tell me you didn't feed that many to the kid?" She asked as he pulled a chair back and indicated to Harry that he should seat himself in it.

"It's fine, Miss. I've certainly eaten worse and it's better than war rations. I grew very tired of Rat on a Stick."

_"Rat?"_ Rose echoed.

"On a stick?" Jack had turned a bit green.

"You eat whatever you can get." Harry said dismissively, raising his eyes to the Doctor's and the alien's nod of agreement let him relax.

"Ever hear the saying, 'War is hell?'"

"Yes. A few times." Rose's voice was hesitant.

"There you go, then." Harry told them, scooting his chair a fraction of an inch closer to the Doctor's...to the person with whom he had something in common. "And really, it's not _that _different from rabbit. Rodents are rodents, right? And even mice make good snacks if you get enough of'em...skin'em an clean'em and toss'em inta a pot ta deepfry'em. As ta the rats, the females get as big as a medium sized rabbit in a war-zone anyway...the males can get three feet long if it's a wood rat, bigger if they're sewer or city rats. You can feed a lot of people, five or six folks at least, with fresh meat who're used to being on really short rations on a big rat, y'know. Might be more to go around if ther'e not as many folks need'n food...and mostly, rats are plentiful in a war. Nice big _fat _ones, you know, the ones that have lots of greasy fat that pops in the fire...yeah, those ones...who knows who they been eatin on, y'know...might even've been chewin' on some of your friends as didn't make it..._may as well return the favor_. No need to do half an enemy's work for them by being too squeamish to eat." He pretended to think about it objectively. "Best part is, they're everywhere...anyplace there's a _body_, there's likely to be a few rats, the fewer the rats the bigger each rat is...been eatin' more, y'know."

Jack was an unhealthy shade of green and he followed Rose when she rapidly left the room, both of them gagging slightly.

"Should I tell them that in order to eat an omnivore, you have to feed it grain or some other vegetable diet for a few weeks before you kill it?" The boy had an unholy gleam in his startling green eyes as he looked up into the Doctor's laughing blue ones.

The Ninth Doctor pretended to think about it, then shook his head. _"Nah."_

"That's what I thought. They can do the research...or I can rub their noses in it later. Or you can."

The Doctor ruffled Harry's hair, "That _was _a little mean, but funny as hell." He muttered. "Jack's from the 51st century and the only place he's ever seen a rat is in history films...and wild tales aside, he's pretty innocent in some ways. Not in others, though. He was actually easier to fool than Rose was."

"Girls are easier though, 'cause they're _girls_. And you really only have to gross out one 'cause they start a chain reaction, so once I had her going, all I had to do was add some details and Uncle Jack was a goner."

"So, are you willing to let me act as your father?" The Doctor had no idea where that question came from. He didn't recall intending to ask it. But the boy's head had come up now and he was staring up into his eyes intently.

"Do you mean that?" And the Ninth, who knew a thing or two about loss, heard the doubt in the boy's voice, added it together with the rest of what he knew or guessed about Harry, and found himself nodding. Harry needed a dad, it was that simple...and he rather thought that Jack was not the best man for that job.

"Yes."

"Am I gonna have a mum?"

"I don't know, I'd have to ask her and I'm not the only man on my ship just now."

"She strikes me as one of the good girls that hold out for a ring, and even the good girls tend go for the guys with the tough broodiness thing going on, like you've got. She's got a South London accent and that means the estates...which means she's probably seen lots of her friends get knocked up and have no husband to show for it..." Harry looked at the Doctor seriously. "She's not going for Jack, she knows where _that _road leads, I can promise you that. 'Sides, when she wasn't staring at me, she couldn't keep her eyes off your butt. And she'd be a pretty decent mum, too, _I _think."

"Rose was checking me out?"

"Yep. Every chance she got. She didn't bother with Uncle Jack, so..."

"You think she's interested already?"

"Yeah."

"Well, let me do some research of my own, see what I find out. Deal?"

"Yes, sir."

"Okay, then...let's go find the other two."

"Hey, Rose?" Jack eased away from the kitchen door and back toward the console room, hoping he had the timing right. "Harry just informed the Doctor you were checking out Doc's bum. Without so much as the tiniest hint of a curious glance at mine, mind you." He grinned at the young woman's sudden, furious blush.

"So...you like the Doctor, then?"

Despite the blush, she nodded. "What's not to like?" She answered, the flush fading now. "He's delicious and an absolute sweetheart on top of that. Add in that brooding thing and the accent...and the fact he just _cares _so much."

"Do you love him?"

"Yes."

"In love too?"

"Yes. Very much so," She replied honestly. "I have been for a while."

She froze when she heard. "That's nice to know." from the console room's door to the hallway, her eyes finding and meeting the Doctor's...and she turned tomato red again.

"See, Dad...told'ya."

"Hush, Harry...for now anyway. You can tease her later, but I think Rose has been set up enough for one day." He nodded briefly to Jack but Harkness knew that it was also a protective warning from the Time Lord, who was apparently not as oblivious as Jack had assumed and was staking a claim."

"Doc, Rose wasn't the one being hit over the head with the facts as we know them. Hell, even Harry could see it and he just _got _here."

And to Harry, Jack tossed a wink. "He's got a huge brain, probably the smartest man you'll ever come across...in most things. But there's some other things that go over his head, hover there and pretty much _stay _out of reach. Those ones you have to shoot and let them drop on him."

Harry snickered. "Yeah, well...grown ups all have their problems with common sense. I mean, everyone except a moron or else someone just totally innocent and niave knows that in order to eat omnivores, you have to put them in a cage on a non-meat diet for at least a couple of months before they're safe to eat...unless it's fish." He grinned up at Jack's chin. "And it's just a wild guess here, mind, but I don't think 'innocent' is the best word to use to describe you, Uncle Jack."

From Rose's direction, there was a giggle, followed by a low voiced, _"Ouchie."_

"Yes, well, I suppose you do see many things you shouldn't at your age in a warcamp." Ninth said quietly.

"Something like that. Best find out what I need protecting from and what I don't, first, yeah? Doesn't make much sense to try to protect me from stuff I already know about, does it? I'm not made of glass. I don't break easily or nothin'."

"No," Jack answered soberly, "I don't suppose you do."

**TBC**


	2. Time, Space and Magical Applications

**SUMMARY: **Harry learns to relax and the adults of the TARDIS discover he's got a rather obvious answer for things like...Weeping Angels. Wizards call them something else entirely and there's a fast fix that works nicely on the damned things. This is a rather short chapter but it should sparks some giggles just the same.

**Time, Space and Magical Applications**

Harry listened to Ninth's warnings about the things his new father called Weeping Angels but which Wizards called Spirit Frozen Tractats and this meant that he could provide a better defense by practicing his wandwork. He did his share of staring at them, but while he stared, he also turned them into solid, clear diamond that extended deep into the planet's crust and attached itself to the bedrock far below their feet.

"I've never seen them _this_ still for so long." Ninth mused, perplexed after about an hour of wandwork when Harry had finally finished turning the false stone of the Tractats' forms into a _real_ mineral. Attaching it to the bedrock meant they'd never manage to release the new form...they couldn't change the _entirety_ of the mantle of the planet which is what they'd have to do to get free, since the bedrock was part of the continental _plate_. What startled and alarmed the Doctor was when Harry moved away from him and toward the Angels, rapping his knuckles against the solid stone of their new form as a reassurance to the rest of them and continued toward the market town they'd come here for.

"Harry?" Rose's voice quavered just a touch. "What did you _do?"_

"Transfigured them into a real mineral and since Dad said diamond is rare in this galaxy I used that. From what Dad said in lessons, any planet that has even a little of it is highest ranked in their area? The kind of diamond I used is the clear white, goes down to bedrock where I locked it in and it looks like these people are wealthy or powerful enough that the can afford to have a lot of it wasted on angelic statues. It's just rough enough to make it appear to be sculpted...I wonder what their rank will be after this? And when they discover the huge seam that I put under it to make sure they stayed put?"

"Should've never told you that once this planet's people reaches the highest of high ranks, this sector will have a few short 'discussions', before they settle down and become friendly, useful _and_ productive." The Doctor grunted. "That tears it, once people see that huge cluster of diamond of the highest grade, the former galactic rulers will be outranked...and once they realize that the connection to the continental plate means it can't be stolen or even _removed _without getting caught...and add the presence of a huge seam suitable for the mining of high grade crystals...and oh _hell_."

"We can get our shopping done while people are gawking at it...and get clear." Jack suggested. "We do need _food_ supplies at least."

"True. Best get _on_ with that then." The Ninth Doctor took a handful of the scruff of Harry's shirt and held on. "You and I need to have a bit of a _chat_, Harry, about Time Lines, how they work with and in histories, _not_ creating _out-of-order_ fixed points and such."

**:WHO:**

"Well, it's not that bad, I guess." Rose nodded as she squatted next to his new form where he lay on the floor.

"Yeah, I mean, he reminds me a little of Mr. Darcy, but I guess it could be worse." Harry agreed, though he sounded a bit unsure. "Could be Jack Sparrow."

"Hey, now..." Jack protested, "That wouldn't be too bad, would it?"

"With his driving?" Rose pointed out. "Besides, I've seen pictures of this him before...he's turned into someone he used to be instead of someone new."

"Oh, yeah...good points. Which one is he, anyway?"

The Doctor raised his right hand to pinch the bridge of his nose, screwing his eyes closed and begged for patience from the universe. This was not the way this was _supposed_ to have gone. All the laws of Time and Space, he had learned, got tossed into the bin when Magic entered the picture, though. There were, apparently, different rules for Magic Users than there were for Time Lords. He'd tried to send Harry back to London with Rose but the boy had already followed Jack out the door and into the fight. As he sat up on the floor of the console room, Jack, Rose and Harry looked back and forth from the little sigil Harry used to diagnose what was wrong with him when he'd started regenerating to his new self and it had verbally explained to the waiting human males and former human female, exactly what was going on...in sort of a play by play way. And now they were discussing his changed body like it was an item on a menu.

It was nice that no one was the least bit disturbed, but...with Harry having taken most of the Daleks out of the picture, Bad Wolf had taken Harry's suggestion to go rescue 8th and ensure there were at least children and looms that survived...and Rose vanished, in fact, she'd only just now gotten back and what would happen now was anyone's guess...though from Harry's remark, he supposed he was right back in his 8th body again, instead of in the Tenth one like he _should_ be.

"I'll be right back, I think I know where she stored his clothes from that body." Rose told Jack and Harry. "See if you can get him off the floor, though. He's going to catch a chill. Take the Doctor to the kitchen and feed him a few bananas and some tea."

"What I don't get about Dad, is why does he call us 'apes' when _he's_ always the one going _ape_ over bananas when all those really are, are giant grass seeds. Does that mean I should start getting rolled oats or sweet feed for him, too?"

Jack shot that one down...trying not to laugh. "No, Time Lords aren't ponies."

"You sure? The diagnostic charm did say he could turn into _anything_."

"Oi!" The Doctor protested.

**:TBC:**


End file.
